The Senate violated their own rules on renaming structures after living people, so they could name it after a politician that did nothing for the bridge, instead of naming it after the man who first proposed he bridge.

Po Chih Lai‘s 8-wheeled skateboard, the Stair-Rover, allows riders to glide down stairs through the use of independent v-shaped articulated arms mounted to the trucks. For £170 (approximately $258 USD) you can get your own stair-rover through Kickstarter. It looks quite cool going down the stairs, and I like the look of the trucks. They remind me of the articulated wheels of the Mars rovers. I briefly considered buying a stair-rover, but then thought better of it, since I don’t actually skateboard.

I don’t understand this. So this old man that has loads of cash to spend on World Series tickets that are front row, right behind home plate comes to the game completely decked out in Marlins gear. A team that isn’t even playing. I know what he would say too, because I one time asked someone that wearing a complete outfit for the wrong team before. “I’m a Marlins fan, and I want everyone to know I care about the Marlins.” Of course, the guy I talked to was at a midsummer day game / bachelor party and hadn’t shelled out over a couple of thousand dollars in tickets, airfare and lodging.

And of course sitting next to him is Mr. John 3:16. (Although,
he did move down for the last out.) Yeah, that’s going to save some souls.

Luzinterruptus is at again, this time putting glowing jars around water fountains throughout Madrid. Agua Potable Corriendo por las Calles (Drinking Water Running Through the Streets) is their protest to fact in last 30 years more than half of the public water fountains in Madrid have either been removed, disconnected, or allowed to fall into disrepair. 200 glass bottles were strung together and placed at four of the cities dilapidated water fountains in such a way to mimic water.

“Tethered balloon specialists”, Aerophile, a European balloon company, has installed a glowing balloon over Paris to inform Parisians of the local air quality. Named Air de Paris and located in the Parc Andre Citroën, the balloon relays data from sensors deployed throughout Paris as part of the CITEAIR project.

This work draws an obvious comparison to the work of Stacey Kuznetsov, a student in Eric Paulous‘s lab at CMU. Her Air Quality balloons, integrated a air quality sensor along with RGB LEDs directly into a weather balloon, to provide local, rather than regional air quality information. I have no idea of Aerophile contacted Stacy Kuznetsov, or what, but the idea of local information.